Causes, Teatments and Risks of Sleep Apnea

* Obstructive Sleep Apnea is when the pharyngeal airway collapses or narrows respectively during sleep. It is accompanied by excessive daytime sleepiness and risk for cardiovascular disease. Risk factors for OSA include obesity, large soft palate/tongue, the male sex, and aging.

Sleep apnea is a common sleeping disorder where a person has experiences of not breathing during sleep. Over 20 million Americans, mostly overweight men, suffer from sleep apnea. Despite these numbers, sleep apnea is often not treated directly because its symptoms are thought to be those of depression, stress, or just loud snoring. There may be a genetic component to this disorder as it often occurs within families.People with sleep apnea stop breathing for at least 10 seconds at a time; these short stops in breathing can happen up to 400 times every night.

OSA is characterized by repeated episodes of either partial or complete obstruction of the upper airways during sleep due to excessive relaxation of airway musculature, which leads to cessation

Obstructive Sleep Apnea, OSA, is a very highly widespread and underdiagnosed disease (Kerner & Roose, 2016). The ailment can affect the person and the people around the affected individual immensely. When one takes the time to diagnose a case of OSA it can be helped and treated. Many different factors should be taken into account when dealing with Obstructive Sleep Apnea, including the psychological perspective it falls under, the research methods used to investigate it, the positive and negative components of the condition, and the controversies associated with it.

Do you get elbowed, and told to roll over in the middle of the night? Do you wake up in the morning exhausted? It’s possible that you could have a severe and potentially fatal disorder called Obstructive Sleep Apnea. OSA can affect anyone; from infants to adults, the healthy and physically fit, and the obese.

There is a strong association between obstructive sleep apnea and hypertension, among cardiac conditions such as heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias and coronary heart disease. OSA and hypertension share similar risk factors such as age and obesity, and are commonly co-morbid. During an obstructive sleep apnea episode the patient experiences reduced airflow due to obstruction in the upper airway, leading to hypoxia and hypercapnia, the patient is typically awakened by these episodes. Due to hypoxia, OSA causes an increase in sympathetic activity, endothelial dysfunction and increased oxidative stress. Increase systemic activity leads to an increase in both heart rate and blood pressure. Endothelial dysfunction is an imbalance of vasorelaxation

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is when someone is experiencing episodes of cessation of breaths during sleep because of their upper airway relaxing and obstructing air flow during sleep. The episodes usually last for ten seconds or greater and is usually accompanied with a decreased oxygen saturation. Although the airway is relaxed and obstructing airflow, the body (brain) is still attempting to breathe. When breathing has resumed from its apneic state, there is usually a loud gasping snore and or body jerking which can lead to restless sleep for the person with OSA and their partner. According the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute more than twelve million people in the United States have this clinical disorder. People who have OSA may be sleepy in the day and experience subsequent disorders such as oxyhemoglobin desaturation, pulmonary hypertension, right-sided heart failure, arrhythmias, myocardial infarction and diabetes. Proper diagnosing and treatment of a person with OSA can yield optimal results thereby improving quality of life.

OSA is a common disorder that is caused by intermittent collapse of upper airway during sleep leading to brain arousal, changes in intrathoracic pressure, and intermittent episodes of hypoxemia and reoxygenation. OSA is increasingly being recognized as a major public health burden, with a strong focus on the associated cardiovascular risk (Phillips and O'Driscoll, 2013).

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is highly prevalent but very frequently undiagnosed. OSA is an independent risk factor for depression and cognitive impairment/dementia. Herein we reviewed studies in the literature pertinent to the effects of OSA on the cerebral microvascular and neurovascular systems and present a model to describe the key pathophysiological mechanisms that may underlie the associations, including hypoperfusion, endothelial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation. Intermittent hypoxia plays a critical role in initiating and amplifying these pathological processes. Hypoperfusion and impaired cerebral vasomotor reactivity lead to the development or progression of cerebral small vessel disease (C-SVD). Hypoxemia exacerbates these processes,

This study investigated the positive correlation between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) with an increased rate of postoperative complications including (1) postoperative hypoxemia, (2) intensive care unit (ICU) transfers, and (3) prolonged length of hospital stay in noncardiac surgical patients. OSA patients commonly express cardiac disease, have an increased risk for postoperative morbidity, and OSA is considered an independent risk factor for patient mortality. This study is significant because there remains a substantial number of patients that arrive for surgery without preceding diagnosis, while there continues to be no standardized diagnostic tool readily available to diagnose OSA within the preoperative area. Kaw et al. demonstrates that there is a increase in many postoperative complications within this at risk patient population.

Obstructive sleep apnea is up to four times as common in men as in women, but women are more likely to develop sleep apnea during pregnancy and after menopause. In older adults, the gender gap narrows after women reach menopause. More than half of people with obstructive sleep apnea are either overweight or obese, which is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 25-29.9 or 30.0 or above, respectively. In adults, excess weight is the strongest risk factor associated with obstructive sleep

​Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) occurs when the airway in the throat close repeatedly during sleep disrupting the person’s normal sleep cycle. It causes apneas, arousals, and loud snoring. In contrast to central sleep apnea, OSA is commonly recognized by an individual’s bed partner. However, the most conclusive method of diagnosing OSA is clinical evaluation and overnight polysomnography studies.5 OSA is the most common form of sleep apnea in the ESRD population.2

Sleep Apnea can lead to many serious complications. The least serious complication would be daytime fatigue and sleepiness. This would be a problem because having sleep apnea makes it impossible to get REM sleep. The lack of a good night's rest causes daytime drowsiness, fatigue, and irritability (Mayo Clinic Staff Print). The more serious complications would be cardiovascular and eye problems. During sleep apnea there is a sudden drop in blood oxygen levels causing hypertension. Hypertension can lead to other heart diseases such as coronary artery disease, heart attack, stroke, and arrhythmias. (Mayo Clinic Staff Print).

When this happens, your body panics and thinks it’s suffocating. You suddenly wake up, but not quite completely. Instead, you fall back to sleep because your airway is open again. As you fall asleep, the airway collapses a little, and you have this horrible cycle of sleeping, gasping for air, and falling back to sleep again. This is officially known as oObstructive sSleep aApnea (OSA).

A2: No, there are three classifications of sleep apnea. The most common type is called Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and, depending on the symptoms, can range from mild to severe conditions and often involves loud snoring sounds. OSA is related to the intake and outflow of a person’s airway. A less common type is called Central Sleep Apnea (CSA),